


The Side Effects of Starving

by Sermna



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Alternate Timeline, F/F, F/M, Humanstuck, Multi, Non-Sburb
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2012-10-08
Updated: 2012-10-30
Packaged: 2017-11-15 22:12:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,176
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/532329
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sermna/pseuds/Sermna
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Rose Lalonde spent twenty lonely years with the tickle of something almost remembered breathing down her neck. It's only when her stomach is empty and she makes the acquaintance of Aradia Megido that she is finally able to see into a vast realm of possibilities- and the ghost of someone who desperately needs her help.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Beginning of Something Terrible

When your mother died, you inherited her large estate along with her loner tendencies. There is very little in the way of money, so you store your food in the basement and wear your jacket inside the vast, cold house. It is becoming very clear that you are going to need roommates, both to fill your time and fill the refrigerator. You haven’t had hot water in weeks. You would put an advertisement up on the internet, but you don’t have that so instead you’ll go into town. It’s very possible you’ll freeze to death inside your mother’s liquor cabinet before then, but a large amount of questionable vodka makes that an almost attractive outcome. You spend a lot of time feeling sorry for yourself.

Your name is Rose Lalonde.

On Tuesday morning, or rather afternoon, you are offered no excuses to not go into town, so you start your car and wait for it to warm up. The roads are clear of ice, but you still pass very few people. No one ever comes down this road, except for when your mother was alive and they would come and ask if she could do work on their project. She almost always did, but she never stayed with any one company. She was the best in her field, and her refusal to permanently settle made her a popular figure. The mercenary scientist.

When you get into town, you begin stapling signs to telephone poles. Looking for a roommate. Female prefered, all else acceptable. You would have attached your phone number, but you haven’t paid the bill in a while so they’ll just have to come without an appointment. Normally you would stop for coffee and maybe a hamburger, but you don’t have the funds.

When you get home, the wind is blowing so you go inside and drag every blanket you can find into the front room and eat Lucky Charms cereal. You realize it’s a little silly, but you just can’t bring yourself to get a job. You’ve always kept to yourself, but something about living alone has really cemented your social anxiety. You wonder how having a roommate is any different. Maybe you should go back, take down the signs, forget about it. _And then what? Enjoy the lovely side effects of starving? Weight loss, lethargy, death. Sure._ Hot water would be nice, too. And television. The internet.

Alright, then. You’ll do it.

 

It’s a week before someone drives up, a large pickup truck in deep red. You watch from the front door as a woman with volumes of what could only be described as fluffy black hair carefully extricates herself from the vehicle. She’s wearing hiking boots and bright red lipstick, which sets something small but very appealing going in your chest. She’s beautiful. She catches your eyes and smiles, and you can tell it’s an expression she wears often- natural and excited. She shakes your hand when she’s near enough to, and she is very strong.

“Hello. My name is Aradia! Are you still looking for a roommate?”

You nod your assent. “I assume you are comfortable living forty minutes out of town? If you are, please, come inside. I’ll give you a tour.”

You step aside to let her pass, and watch as her gaze runs over the living room, up over the balcony leading to the second floor, past the neglected wizard statue, all the way back to you.

“So you like wizards?”

“Oh, yes. Not as much as my late mother did, however. I swear I would find her telling that statue about her day, sometimes.”

Aradia laughs. “Well, if it makes you feel better her spirit isn’t hanging around anymore.”

You don’t really know what to say to that, so you show her the rest of the house. She shows a lot of enthusiasm for the telescope, and especially the mausoleum.  When you arrive back at the living room, Aradia is beaming widely at you. Her teeth are a little crooked, but very white.

“Oh, this is very nice. The sign said you were only asking $850 a month though- are you sure that’s all you want?”

You think of the coffee you haven’t had in weeks, and the warm water.

“Oh, yes.”

“Well- it looks like you have a roommate!” She smoothes her skirt and looks around again. “Only one thing,” she says, and squints at the stairs.

“What’s that, may I ask?”

She pushes her hair behind her ear and smiles softly at you.

“Your house is haunted.”

 

__

  


She moves in two days later, arriving in the same truck with furniture in the back. You would help unload, but she’s brought a friend, Tavros, who handles everything with ease. He blushes when he’s introduced, and doesn’t know what to do with his hands. He has prosthetic legs, graceful ones that he seems to have a certain pride in, and you are fairly certain that he got his large arms from pushing around a wheelchair at some point. You catch him tenderly removing a chattering squirrel from a pile of blankets in the bed of the truck.    

You don’t have any tea to offer them, but Aradia produces powdered packs of hot chocolate and a kettle so you all sit in the vast kitchen and talk about the property.

“It’s not often that you find a ghost in such a new house, you know,” Aradia says companionably, “and she’s different than anything I’ve ever felt before.”

“She?” You’ve never believed in ghosts, but it was less skepticism and more disinterest. You weren’t against the idea.

“Yes! She was young when she was imprinted, but I don’t think she ever actually died.”

“Like... a memory imprint?” Tavros asks. He has a pleasant voice, but it takes him a little while to get anything out.

Aradia purses her lips. “Not quite, I don’t think. Almost. Hey-” she turns to you again- “do you think there are temporal limits to our universe?”

“Well,” you say uncertainly. It was an unexpected question, but not one you were unfamiliar with. “The universe began at some point, or else existed in a different form, and will presumably end at another.”

“Let me rephrase, then. Do you think ‘alternate’ universes can exist within the same space, but in different temporal zones? A thousand different ‘timelines’ that exist based solely on decisions and former bonds and knowledge?”

You squint at the ceiling. This girl is just too much, she sounds like she’s testing you. That’s fine, you suppose- you always liked tests. This was an interesting topic, anyway, if not an impossible one.

“No, I don’t.”

“Maybe you should think about it more,” she suggests, like you had multiplied wrong or something. “Personally, I think they do. Not only that, I believe links between them can exist, and that your little shadow is one of them.”

“So she is someone who existed in a different timeline?”

“I think so,” she says, and drinks the last of her hot chocolate. It leaves a mustache, she laughs and wipes it with her sleeve. “The question is, if she existed in another timeline, does she exist in this one?”

 

___

  


Tavros leaves, clearly relieved to do so (you get the feeling that he is confused and a little intimidated by Aradia’s beliefs), and Aradia left to arrange her room, so you are left to sit on the couch and think about the future. You’re going to have to get a job, roommate or no. You imagine Aradia already has one in town. You can easily see her in an occult bookstore, lovingly dusting the ouija boards.

And what of that ghost? In all honesty, you don’t care if she exists or not, but you don’t want Aradia drawing pentagrams in the floor. Actually- that could actually be pretty fun. It would ruin the carpet, though.

You look to the window, where, wonder of all wonders, snow has begun to fall.

You can’t wait until the heater works again.

 

___

  


Your name is Aradia, and you have just found what you believe is your dream home. Your room is nice, and has a small bathroom attached. There’s service, miraculously, so you call Sollux to tell him about what might be further confirmation of your alternate timeline theories. You had introduced the idea months ago, and he had latched onto it with surprising enthusiasm. You could sometimes find him chewing Advil and staring at a wall, thin face blank with thought. He tells you he can feel everyone dying, but he won’t tell you who ‘everyone’ is.

“Hey Sollux!”

Theres crackle on the line, but Sollux’s voice comes through low and thin.

“Oh, hey AA. How’s the place you’re looking into?” He sounds tired, but that’s normal. He doesn’t sleep a whole lot.

“Wonderful, exactly what I was hoping for! It’s big, gorgeous, and the owner if renting me a room cheap as dirt.”

He gives a short, crumpled laugh. “It’s because you’re hot, huh?”

“I’m not sure she really payed attention to me! She just looks pale and hungry.”

“Is she rich?”

“Her house says ‘yes,’ the lack of heating says ‘no.’”

“Maybe, no wait for it, maybe she stole the house and now you’re implicated in house theft.”

You laugh. “And maybe, we’ll run away together and become infamous outlaws. A terror to houses everywhere.” You glance at the door, and lower your voice conspiratorially. “There’s a ghost here.”

There’s another loud burst of static, but it subsides in time for you to hear him say “Oh?”

“Yeah. Even better, _it’s the owner_ , Sollux. From a different timeline.”

He whistles. “Wow. How can you tell?”

“I could hear her. She called me by name. I kept thinking it was just the alive one talking to me while she gave me the tour, she kept looking at me funny everytime I said ‘what.’”

“Damn.” You can hear him booting his computer up in the background.

“I know. Anyway, I’ll call you later when I know more. Sounds like you’re busy.”

He sighs. “My customers are idiots. Couldn’t keep their computers working if they tried, and fucking believe me, they don’t.”

“Sorry about that. Talk to you later.”

“Later, AA.”


	2. Them's the Breaks

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rose eats, learns, and is gripped by the sudden realization that life is very, very strange.

Aradia cooks, and she cooks damn well. In the kitchen, an array of perfectly matched professional pans (your mother’s- unused) simmer and pop in little belching harmonies. Beside them reside skillets fresh with steaming contents. She hums a melancholy tune and dances between the pans, light on her feet. It is almost noon, and you are in your pajamas.

“You aren’t a vegetarian, are you?” she asks, all concern over platters of eggs and bacon.

“Not anymore,” you say, and consume at least eight eggs. They are amazing, and the bacon is burnt. Black pepper crusts it all in sharp spice, and somehow it goes down in a burn of sheer indulgence. Her food is as strange as the way she is watching you eat, marked with unmistakable enthusiasm. God, you’ve missed company.

“So when did you go get food?” You ask, thinking of the frozen roads. Later in the year you will likely be snowed in.

“Oh, this morning. I like to wake up early, so I can see the sunrise. It reminds me that everyday is precious and could be our last!” She says it as brightly as if she were talking about puppies. It is, to be frank, endearing.

“Naturally.” A question tickles your throat. “Did you, perchance, buy-”

 “Coffee?” She offers brightly, and points a red nail across the kitchen at the coffee machine. “Of course.”

You let out a sigh that is one part dramatics to two parts sincerity. “You’re an angel.”

She smiles in acknowledgement.

You are a sugar-and-cream sort of person, but you chug two plain mugs down with embarrassing relief. It’s not very good coffee, but damn is it caffeine. Lines about it burning through your veins come to mind, but really it only burns down your throat. You dribble a little onto the Tweety bird on your t-shirt. You do not find it in you to care.

You can see that she is doing her best not to laugh. You raise an eyebrow at her and very pointedly lick coffee off your top lip. With this permission, she lets out a laugh that rings in your head like bells, and it is at this point that you realize that you are very likely done for. You have a girl crush on your roommate, which would probably not be so bad if she were not such a mess.

But then, so are you.

___  
   

After breakfast, Rose goes back to her room, presumably to get dressed, and you begin to soak the grease-crusted pans. Oily beads rise to the surface of soapy water, and a familiar tickle does the same in your head. A very quiet truth presents itself to your conscience, as simple as it is certain.

There is another presence in the room.

You turn to look behind you, and a scant figure is perched on the counter. She is regarding you blankly, and for all her resemblance to the Rose you know, her face is dead and young. You realize suddenly that she is very, very sad.

She fades quickly away.  
 

You leave the sink and settle yourself at the table again. For all your knowledge of the dead, the living still eludes you with startling dexterity. You wonder if Sollux would be able to hear her. Would her voice be among the choir of the soon-to-be dead? You almost hope not- young girls are generally happier when they are alive.

And yet.

You flip your phone out, but there is no service. You fiddle with the buttons anyway, an idle pastime that keeps you busy until Rose descends the stairs again and gives you a very strange look.

“I don’t believe I have ever seen you upset, Ms. Megido. Is there any particular reason?” Her eyes sweep to the mounds of dirty cookware. “I will do the dishes, if that’s what it is.”

You know that she knows that that is not ‘what it is.’ You appreciate the gesture, as well as her knowledge of your character. Most of all, you enjoy the diversion.

“Thanks!”

She smiles and sets to work.

___  
  
As you suspected, a week later the door is unopenable due to roughly five feet of snow stacked on the other side. That is fine with you- you and Aradia prepared thoroughly ahead of time. The heater works, and so does the electricity and water, and there is enough food for about two weeks. You will likely only be snowed in for a few days.

Another small victory is the arrival of a second roommate candidate a few days before, a tall slim woman by the name of Kanaya. She speaks in a way that very clear, if not a little stiff. There is trapped humor behind every word, like she is enjoying something private. It is a very attractive quality. You are beginning to believe that you have an amazing, and useless, ability to fall in love with anyone. Kanaya informs you that she will be back within the month. You get Aradia to help you clear out another guest room.

“Rose?” She asks, and there is more than a little amusement in her tone.

“Yes?” You are sifting through boxes of baby clothes and pictures. Most of them include you, chubby and serene, and the out-of-focus face of your happy mother as she recklessly used the camera to capture her happy life with your daughter. You miss her very, very much.

“There is an entire box filled with whiskey bottles and pacifiers. Should I be concerned?”

You turn to smirk at her. “My childhood was measured almost entirely by bottles and toys, Aradia. Half a bottle, one day, the other half, the next. Pacifiers and peek-a-boo kept me entertained and wizard stories lulled me to sleep. Sometimes, if I am having nightmares, I open a bottle and leave it on my nightstand.”

She stares at you. “That is the most hilariously horrible thing I have ever heard anyone say.”

You wink. “Them’s the breaks.”

____

 

On the third day of your house arrest, you manage to get another call through to Sollux. It is very likely that he can actually feel the love oozing from your words, because he is much less sharp than usual. You miss him more than you can say.

“Sollux, you have to visit soon.”

“I know,” he says, and gives a little choked laugh. “I just finished a job, so I can probably get gas soon. How far out is your new house? An hour? That makes the trip close to five.”

You sigh. “Yes, but we will have to wait a few days anyway. We are snowed in, and no one is coming to shovel it all away until the day after tomorrow.”

“Oh, shit. Do you have food?”

You laugh. “Of course! Rose bought about fifty bags of pretzels and enough eggs to feed a small village. She will likely eat every last one of them.

“Next week?” He asks.

“Next week,” you confirm. Love nibbles at your stomach.

“I love you,” you inform him.

The line crackles a little, and you swear the oil bead is rising in your mind again, light and discrete. You ignore it for the moment.

“Fuck. I love you too, AA.”

You feel alternate-Rose give a small sigh behind you.


	3. Being Classy Really Sucks

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sollux has no manners, and neither does Rose.

On Thursday a large orange truck comes by and shovels away most of the snow and ice, revealing the frost-bitten dirt. The river that once powered your home rushes again, icy, dangerous, and useless to you now. Close to a year ago your mother had tried to show you how the device that converted the water’s motion into energy worked, but you had been uninterested. Now, with bills making their way to you with steady knocking, you find yourself regretting that decision. The generator lies broken and swamped in a forgotten room.

For three days a blizzard had raged. Aradia spent quite a bit of her imprisonment up in the astronomy tower, where she gazed at the stars and thought of the thin line between the earthly plane and the heavenly. At least, that is what you thought she was doing; you really couldn’t be sure. As for yourself- well, you immersed yourself in the comforting world of wizards and magic. You have notebook upon notebook of lilac ink filled pages, which recently have turned black as you cast off old childish habits. You use black pens and unadorned notebooks and sit and wonder _why_. The purple is painful, somehow. It brings memories of GREEN and BLUE and RED. You’ve no idea why.

You fall asleep Wednesday night to the tick-tack of Aradia playing with her tarot tiles. _The Tower_ , you think, and settle into dreams.

The next morning you awake to the unmistakable feeling of _someone_ , but you are slow to look and you find nothing. Downstairs, the clang of a pot is heard and you comfort yourself in knowing that Aradia is awake. _What good will that do you?_ You wonder. _She is as comfortable with the dead as you are with your words_. You begin to think that maybe, just maybe, she was right when she said your house was haunted.

You are also beginning to think that you might actually care if it is.  
___  
  


Kanaya comes again on Saturday, and she is as tall and stiff as she is snarky and amicable. She comments on the wizard statue, and the bedrooms, and lights up at the liquor cabinet. 

“I don’t drink much,” you tell her.

She smiles slightly and uses a hand to touch one shaped curl. “I do.”

She came back later that day with all her belongings. There was considerably more than what Aradia had brought, but she carried most of it herself. You wondered at her thin arms and decided that perhaps you were now hosting a ghost _and_ a vampire. For some reason that was very funny to you.  
___  
  
By the beginning of December, your house feels full. There are only three girls in a sea of empty rooms, but there is always sound. Aradia laughing, the hum of Kanaya’s sewing machine, old-fashioned comedy played on the radio and your very own click-clack of needles. The wind picks up sometimes and you think you hear your name, but you brush the whispers aside with only a small amount of annoyance. Aradia produces tiles of The Lovers and Death and shares them with Kanaya, who selects two more with delicate fingers. You don’t stop to see what they are.    

 

Tavros visited, twice. He was very polite, but like Kanaya nursed his own sense of humor that kept you smiling behind your hand.

 

“You’re welcome anytime,” you tell him, and he grins at you.

 

A corner of the living room has been sanctioned off as Aradia’s, where a table and box reside, filled with tarot cards and tiles, candles, incense, and other accoutrements. One whole hallway houses large swathes of cloth, rolled and not, large pillowy mounds of cotton and velvet and whatever else that you sometimes nest in when no one else is around.

You are, for the first time in many years, happy.  
___  
  
“Sollux,” you say. “I’ve talked to Rose and you can come visit tomorrow, maybe stay the night. You want to?”

He snorts, and you hear the clatter of what was probably his keyboard being pushed back under his desk. “Like you even have to ask.”

You beam, and though he can’t see you, you know he is smiling as well.

“Sleep tonight, okay?”

“Sure, AA.”

You don’t believe he will. You settle into bed Tuesday night and decide to sleep for both of you.  
___  
  


The sun is spreading a spiderweb of gold over the snow, and you walk restlessly from hallway to hallway. _Three hours_ , you tell your brain. _Three whole hours that you could pass by sleeping_. Even as you think it, you disregard yourself. You haven’t seen Sollux in a month. You wonder if he got a haircut, or if his last one has grown out enough to not be a disaster. It probably hasn’t. 

A floorboard creaks behind you, an artificial sound created by something that does not quite exist.

“Aradia,” she says, sharp and cold.

“I don’t have time for you,” you tell her. She is somewhere near your elbow. You can feel her breath, and you briefly wonder if she is only messing with you.

But ghosts do not have a sense of humor.

She makes a sort of choking noise, and you catch a still image out of the corner of your eye. She’s been stabbed, and collapses on the floor in a spreading lake of red, red, red.

You leave her be. It is not the first time she’s died.  
  
___  
  


“Kanaya,” you whisper. It’s not quite 6 am, and a thin line of yellow cuts Kanaya’s bed neatly in half.

“Rose,” she mumbles. She does not sound happy. You do not care.

“Can I spoon with you,” you ask. She mumbles something about ‘forwardness’ and shifts in the bed. You climb in and put your cold feet on her leg, and allow yourself a smirk when she hisses in a breath.

“Rose, perhaps I am just not familiar with romantic matters, but I believe that two days is not long enough for two people to have become familiar as we have.” She is talking into her pillow. You drape an arm around her and pat her face.

“You let me in your bed.”

“I suppose so.”

“So you don’t care.”

“I suppose not.”

You fall asleep shortly afterwards and drool on the back of her nightgown. Kanaya only sighs.  
      
___  
  


“Jesus, AA.”

You glance at Sollux. Amazingly, he has shown up to your house in a black t-shirt and unfashionably blue, blocky jeans. You are standing in front of the house, where birds chitter overhead. He’s staring at the sky like he might be able to will it to stop snowing.

“You can borrow my jacket,” you tell him. He glances at you, and lets out another suppressed snort.

“Fuck. It’s my fault anyway. Forgot you’d moved to Antarctica to, I don’t know, commune with the souls of all the people who’d died without access to a Starbucks.”

“There’s a Starbucks in town, Sollux.”

“That’s forty minutes away.”

“We have a coffee machine.”

You’ve missed his smiles, and for all his skinniness and angles, he’s soft and familiar. He takes your hand and you go inside.

 

You watch as his eyebrows shoot up at the beautiful, minimalistic interior, before settling on the wizard statue. He chokes and laughs for a solid minute, which summons Rose and Kanaya to the balcony. You politely ignore the hickey on Rose’s neck during breakfast. Sollux doesn’t.

 

Rose only smiles at him.

 


End file.
